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Should you say I'm fine, I'm good, or I'm well? And when do you use me too? And me neither? Today you'll learn how to use these confusing but very common English responses. Welcome back to JForrest English. Of course. I'm Jennifer. Now, let's get started. If someone asks you how are you, how are you? Would you reply with I'm fine, I'm good, or I'm well? It depends, because all three are grammatically correct, but natives use them differently. Let's review. I'm fine, I'm fine.
First of all, know that this has a more neutral sound. It also sounds distant in the sense of cold, and it can even sound negative. That's the way that natives use it in reality. So listen to my tone and my body language. If someone asks how's the new job going, it's fine. Does it sound like I'm enthused about this job? Am I excited about this job? Or if you're in a restaurant and you order the salmon and the server asks you how's the salmon and you reply with it's fine. Thanks. Do you love the salmon? Is it delicious or is it just OK? Now in a grocery store setting or in a setting where you're having a brief interaction with a stranger and they ask you how are you?
As a pleasantry, you can absolutely reply back and say I'm fine or simply fine. Thanks and you. Now in this case you don't actually care about the answer, so that's why I said it sounds more distant, even potentially cold. Now when someone asks you how are you and you reply with I'm good, this is a natural positive reply. But what about in this situation? Do you want more coffee? I'm good in this case. This is a casual way to refuse an offer, so it has nothing to do with your well-being.
No, I'm good. Now let's review. I'm well. This is the formal version of I'm Good. Natives don't commonly use this as a reply to how are you, but we do use it when the focus is on health or well-being. So if I ask you, how's your grandmother doing, you might say she's well, you're focusing on your grandmother's health and well-being. Don't worry about taking these notes. I summarize everything in a free lesson PDF. You can find the link in the description. A very common question you'll be asked is what do you do? So what do you do? Of course, this is the natural way of asking what is your job?
What do you do? The responses may be confusing because there are different sentence structures and different prepositions being used. You can say I'm a teacher, I'm a teacher. Don't forget that article. You need the article. Ah, before the job title. Now, an alternative sentence structure is I work as a teacher. So you still need that article a teacher. But here you're using the verb work and you're adding the preposition as this is the formal version of the response above.
Now you could also say I teach English as a second language. So here you're using the verb I teach, so you're focused on the action. You could also say I work in education. So now education, this is the industry and we use work in plus industry in addition to education. You might talk about marketing or finance. Those are common industries. You could say I work for Tesla, so you work for and then the name of the company or organization. So in this example, Tesla is your employer.
If you say I work at Tesla, so notice work at and then a location, yes, Tesla is the employer. But if you use at, you view it as a location. If you're talking to a friend and they say I love ROM coms, ROM coms, that's a genre of movie romantic comedies. I love ROM coms and you want to agree you can say me too O me too is agreement with a positive statement. Or maybe your friend says I'm so busy this weekend. You want to agree with that positive statement. You can say me too, or so am I. But she is worried and so am I. Now if your friend says I love pistachio Gelato, pistachio Gelato, you can reply with so do I, so do I. So notice that auxiliary verb changes. So in the first one, are you busy? Yes, I am.
That's why the auxiliary verb was am. Do you like Gelato? Yes, I do. That's why it was. So do I. So pay attention to that verb change. Or maybe your friend says I hate horror movies. You would say me too, or so do I, because you're agreeing with a positive statement. But if your friend says I don't like horror movies, what would you say? Me neither or neither. Do I? Yeah, me neither. Neither do I. So you use neither to show agreement with a negative statement. So just remember, I love horror movies. Me too. So if you say I hate horror movies, this is a positive statement.
So you would say me too. If you say I'm not busy this weekend, it's negative. So you say me neither. Neither am I because remember, are you busy? So think about what auxiliary verb you need. Let's look at this sentence. I've never gone skydiving, so to jump out of a plane with a parachute. So this is a negative sentence. Never. So you can say me neither, neither have I. Or you could use a full sentence and say I've never gone skydiving either. Or you can use the short form of the sentence and say I haven't because that represents I haven't gone skydiving. I haven't either.
Well, I haven't either. So we use either to also show agreement with a negative statement. But the sentence structure is different because you use full sentence form and then you add either at the end. Compare this to neither agreement with a negative statement, but it's a fixed expression. Me neither. Neither do I, neither am I, neither have I. Let's say your coworker says do you mind helping me move these boxes? And you reply back and say yes I do, yes I do. Uh oh.
You just told your coworker that you are upset or inconvenienced by the request. Because when the question is in do you mind, you have to use the negative to accept it. So you would say no I don't, no I don't mind. And this expresses that you're happy to accept the request. Notice these common replies all using the negative. Do you mind if I sit here? No, not at all. Remember, you're saying yes, you can sit here. Do you mind staying late tonight? No, I don't mind. Yes, I'm happy to stay late. Do you mind if we meet without you? No, please go ahead.
You're showing acceptance of this request. We were talking about Gelato before, so let's say someone asks you about your favorite flavors, and you reply back and say one of my favorite flavors is pistachio. I see many mistakes with this common reply, and the mistake I see is that students use a singular noun for flavor, but it must be plural. It must be a plural noun because the category of the noun flavors is plural. There are many different flavors, and then you take out pistachio and whatever else as your favorite, but the category is plural. Pay attention these common alternatives if someone asks you do you like pistachio Gelato? Absolutely, it's one of my favorites.
Notice I added the South to favorites because the noun isn't there. The noun remember is flavors is one of my favorite flavors because I have a plural noun. Favorite is singular. Now, if you want to talk in absolute terms, you don't need the plural noun. It's my favorite flavor. You have one favorite flavor and that's pistachio. Remember that sentence structure? We have one of plural noun, singular verb. One of my favorite flavors is pistachio. If your colleague asks you, have you filed all the reports?
You could say I've filed almost all of them. Them is a pronoun. Do not say I filed almost all them. This is confusing because if you use the noun, you could say I've tried all the flavors. Thinking of ice cream flavors or Gelato flavors, I've tried all of the flavors. Remember of is optional before a noun in this sentence structure. But when you use the pronoun, you must say I've tried all of them, not I've tried all them. So remember of is required before a pronoun in this sentence structure. There are variations to this sentence structure. You might start with.
Most of us agreed with the decision, so us is a pronoun. That's why you must use of most of us. You could make it 0. None of them read the report before the meeting. Them is the pronoun you must use of. If your friend says to you I hear you, I hear you. Your friend may not be talking about audio quality. So yes if someone asks can you hear me, you can reply back and say I can hear you, I can hear you or I hear you loud and clear. There are different ways you can express this using hear. But let's say your coworker is complaining to you and says this deadline is so stressful and you reply back and say I hear you.
Oh I hear you Hon. This doesn't have anything to do with audio quality. This is to show empathy, understanding, or acknowledgement. Now keep in mind it may or may not show agreement. So remember, if your coworker says this deadline is so stressful, if you say I hear you, it doesn't necessarily mean that you agree that the deadline is so stressful. You're simply acknowledging your coworkers feelings. But maybe for you, you're not stressed at all. So you say, do you want me to show you my time management strategy? And remember to understand vocabulary. Is this about audio ability or is this to show empathy?
It always depends on context. Context will make it obvious. Let's say someone asks you how your day is going and you say it's quite busy today. Natives use quite frequently, but this means moderately, but not extremely. So if you say I'm quite tired, you might still do an action. I'm quite tired, but I can stay late and help because it isn't extreme, it's moderate. Or if you say, I hear Jonas is quite sick today, this is a moderate degree. So you can say I hear Jonas is a little sick. I hear Jonas is sick.
I hear Jonas is quite sick. I hear Jonas is very sick. Natives commonly use the reply good for you, but this can be positive, good for you or very sarcastic and condescending, good for you. It depends on context and it depends on delivery through your tone and body language. So if your coworker says I got the promotion, you can say good for you, good for you. Clearly my tone is positive based on my tone and body language. This means I'm so happy to hear that it's positive. But if another coworker says, did you hear that Sarah got the promotion and I reply back, good for her.
Well clearly this isn't positive. I'm not happy to hear that and notice in that situation I didn't deliver that directly to Sarah, which would be very rude. I delivered it to another coworker. So you could consider that gossiping. Let's say you're talking to someone you haven't seen in a while and at the end you say to that person we should catch up soon. Should is a strong recommendation. If I say you should congratulate Sarah on the new promotion, I strongly recommend this. You should study more. I strongly recommend this. But when natives say we should catch up soon, this is more of a polite closing
to a conversation regardless of intent. So there may be 0 intent on my part to reach out to that person and schedule a time to go for coffee and catch up. Which means spend time together sharing news and updates. Now just know the person who receives this understands it's a polite thing to do. So if I say we should catch up soon, the other person most likely won't say oh sure, when are you available? They'll probably say something general. Absolutely, I'd love that. And you will both leave knowing you won't see that person for a long time. And you don't have to use catch up.
You can use any wording that suggests seeing each other again or spending time together. For example, we should get together this summer. Definitely. That sounds great. There's a slim chance I'll see you this summer. Do you want me to keep helping you learn these confusing replies because of the vocabulary choice or the grammar? If you do, put yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, put, yes, yes, yes, yes in the comments below. And of course, make sure you like this lesson, share it with your friends and subscribe to your notified. Every time I post a new lesson. And you can get this free speaking guide where I share 6 tips on how to speak English fluently and confidently.
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